Description:

This book is designed to explain the core, the essential nature of war, peace, and strategy. It could even be described as a user's guide. The popular and the scholarly literature on these three closely related topics is vast, a fact that reflects both the enduring grim reality of the human condition and an insatiable public appetite for the vicarious thrill of military dangers faced by others. Fighting Talk (FT) provides a unique window upon the most important of subjects. In addition to explaining the nature of war, peace, and strategy, and the relations among them, FT takes the logical next step and proceeds from understanding to advice. Stated bluntly, this book tells its readers (a)… what war, peace, and strategy are, and (b) how to conduct them successfully, or, at least, how to increase prospects for success. The highly unusual organization of FT is vital for its mission and its appeal to readers. Because it consists of forty mini-essays, albeit grouped broadly by theme and ordered so as to present some approximation to a story arc, FT can focus exactly on its message. This book comprises a strategist's working assumptions about strategic history and how it operates. It is rare for authors to expose their assumptions at all explicitly, let alone in this fashion where they are highlighted and serve as the guide to the story, analysis, and policy prescriptions.

Peace and order are not self-enforcing, they have to be organized and kept by somebody

Not only polities, but societies and their cultures make war and peace

Reason reigns over war, but passion and chance threaten to rule

There is more to war than warfare

Policy is king, but often is ignorant of the nature and character of war

War is always a gamble

Knowledge of strategy is vital : the flame of strategic understanding has to be kept lit

Strategy is more difficult than policy or tactics

Bad strategy kills, but so also do bad policy and tactics

If Thucydides, Sun-tzu, and Clausewitz did not say it, it probably is not worth saying

The strategic "Concept du Jour" will be tomorrow's stale left-over, until it is rediscovered, recycled, and revealed as a new truth

The enemy too has a vote

Time is the least forgiving dimension of strategy

Friction is unavoidable, but need not be fatal

All strategy is geostrategy : geography is fundamental

Strategy is not wholly military

The impossible is impossible; it is a condition, not a problem for which a solution has yet to be found

People matter most

Military power is trumps in politics

Military excellence can only be verified by performance in war

Military excellence cannot guarantee strategic success

Victory in battle does not ensure strategic or political success, but defeat all but guarantees failure

There is more to war than firepower : the enemy is not just a target set

Logistics is the arbiter of strategic opportunity

Bad times return

There are always thugs, villains, rogues, and fools out there, as well some in here, who mean us harm

Superthreats do appear

Prudence is the supreme virtue in statecraft and strategy

Strategic history punishes good intentions

Defense costs are certain, but security benefits are uncertain and arguable

Arms can be controlled, but not by arms control

Nothing of real importance changes : modern history is not modern

History can be misused to "prove" anything, but it is all that we have as a guide to the future

The future is not foreseeable : nothing dates so rapidly as today's tomorrow

Surprise is unavoidable, but its effect is not

Tragedy happens

Afterword : cannon lore

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